The Forgotten Chaplain

By Robert Livingston

The North Atlantic, February 3, 1943. A German submarine, the U-223 torpedoes the USAT Dorchester. The ship sinks within a few minutes with the loss of over 700 lives. The official Naval Records indicate that four Army chaplains aboard the ship gave their lifejackets to frightened soldiers. Praying together the chaplains stayed on the sinking ship. They are known today as the Four Immortal Chaplains, a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, and two Protestant ministers. There is evidence that a Fifth Chaplain, a Black sailor in the Coast Guard, also saved many lives that terrible night. His story, lost in history, should also be honored for his courage and sacrifice at a time when racism was endemic in the Navy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663216380

Robert Livingston

Robert Livingston was a high school history teacher in Los Angeles for thirty-seven years. He taught U.S. History and Government, Economics, and Comparative Religions. In retirement he joined a local Kiwanis Club and supervised three high school Key Clubs. He has written four books, each of which explored America's racial history in the military and in our national pastime. He has written extensively on the causes of World War I and the reasons behind Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-1637-3 (sc)

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iUniverse rev. date:  01/19/2021

image1.jpg

Lt. George Fox – Lt. Clark Polling– Lt. Father John

Washington, and Lt. Alexander Goode

http://www.kofc.org/en/columbia/detail/the-four-immortal-chaplains.html

This story is dedicated to all chaplains who brought faith and courage

to the men and women in our armed forces during wartime.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Daybreak

Chapter 2     The Visitor

Chapter 3     Hill And Brady

Chapter 4     A Moral Issue

Chapter 5     The Courthouse Gang

Chapter 6     The Fifth Man

Chapter 7     The First Stamp

Chapter 8     Updates

Chapter 9     The Source

Chapter 10   The Survivor

Chapter 11   The Cruel Decision

Chapter 12   Meetings

Chapter 13   The Captain

Chapter 14   The Deep South

Chapter 15   The Radar Officer

Chapter 16   The Chase

Chapter 17   Recovery

Chapter 18   Research

Chapter 19   Harry

Chapter 20   The Wives – Isadore Fox And Mary Washington

Chapter 21   Hard Evidence

Chapter 22   The Other Wives

Chapter 23   The U-223

Chapter 24   Roser

Chapter 25   Pacifist

Chapter 26   Missing

Chapter 27   Survival

Chapter 28   A Miracle At Sea

Chapter 29   The Forgotten Sailor

Chapter 30   Redemption

Chapter 31   Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

Happy Birthday, Kieran… If my math is correct, today is February 14, 2021 and you are sixteen. Wow! The years have really flown by.

My present to you is story I started writing way back in 2012. The story is called Forgotten Chaplain. What makes the story special is that (a) you are in it, and (b) it is about four brave men, who are known to history as the Four Immortal Chaplains. More about them in a moment…

In this story you are fourteen and staying with your Uncle Bob (that’s me) and Auntie Lynn. We have two children in high school, Rachel (a senior) and Matthew (a sophomore). Why are you living with your youthful cousins? Your mother’s fictional job requires her to be in Europe for six months. Don’t ask me what’s she’s doing. I have no idea. It’s just an author’s ploy to explain your stay with the extended family.

Uncle Bob (again, that’s me) is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and is investigating what happened to the USAT Dorchester (United States Army Transport) on February 3, 1943 during World War II in the North Atlantic within a 100-miles of Greenland. The ship, he knows, was torpedoed and sunk by the U-223, a German submarine. He is aware of what the four chaplains did --- a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, and two Protestant ministers. They gave away their life jackets and thick gloves to save the lives of American soldiers. He knows the four chaplains went down with the ship, sacrificing their lives to help others. What he doesn’t know is this: was there a fifth chaplain who also sacrificed his life, but has been lost to history? Circumstantial evidence suggests such an unknown chaplain existed.

As I do my research the family gets involved. Your cousins decide to help their father. You join in with a little assistance from Auntie Lynn. Together you solve the mystery.

Kieran, I have always been fascinated by the what if’s of history. If John Wilkes Booth’s gun had misfired and President Lincoln had lived, how might American history have been different? If Albert Einstein had not written his famous letter to President Roosevelt warning of a potential German atomic bomb, how might the history of World War II been changed? If John Connolly, the Governor of Texas, had been killed and not President Kennedy on that terrible day in Dallas, how might American history been altered?

Of course, these what if’s" questions cannot be fully answered. But they do tempt and provoke, and engender heated discussion and debate, especially if we are disheartened by the way things turned out. Nevertheless, it is fun to joist with history. We do so even though the actual events will have the last word.

Naturally, I hope you will enjoy the story as well as learn some history. Feel free to share your thoughts with others, especially your mother. She, I know, loves history.

Grandpa, 2020

CHAPTER 1

DAYBREAK

JANUARY 1943 – 5:00 A.M. – THE EAST COAST

The rain, which had fallen for hours from the darkened sky in torrents, was finally abating, becoming a clammy, dispiriting drizzle that soaked everything in the port like a wet blanket. The chunky, dark clouds, still ominous and threatening, continued to float above the frantic efforts of men and machines below as if some-how moored by an invisible anchor. A bone chilling wind whipped through the early morning, wrapping itself around the worn civilian and military workers and the long line of weary soldiers. The long night was almost over.

Giant shipboard cranes lifted large wooden crates from the ever-swaying pier, depositing their precious cargo of engineering equipment, construction materials, and food into the ship’s bay. Aboard the ship, fatigued sailors jostled with the bulky boxes, steering them gingerly into the yawning hole, while below deck other tired sailors pushed and shoved the crates into their predetermined locations. Around the ship equally exhausted stevedores manhandled other crates marked US Army, even as they attached heavy chains and ropes around them before landlocked cranes hoisted the containers into the ever-lightening sky. The harsh grunting of the heavily dressed dockhands was accompanied by an occasional cursing of the Gods, in tandem with the squawking and squealing of chains and pulleys bearing the full weight of the indispensable cargo. Nothing, it seemed, was going quietly into the night as 1,000 tons of necessary supplies were loaded into the baleful blackness of the ship’s hole.

A long row of drenched and disheartened soldiers bearing duffle bags and weapons moved slowly and quietly along the pier toward the ship. The men, fresh from boot camp and the most basic military training, had come from Camp Miles Standish in nearby New Jersey. They traveled in sealed railroad cars to this point of disembarking. Due to wartime secrecy and the ever-possible threat of German spies, the smoke belching train’s windows had been covered, secured against peering eyes, and the men had not been told their immediate destination. Had they been told, without question disbelief would have ruled. Staten Island, are you kidding me?

The lead soldiers stopped at the gangplank where two officers dressed in black, slick raincoats, reigned. Each officer had a clipboard, which he sought to keep shielded from the lightening, but still incessant raindrops. He checked every soldier against his clipped manifest. Names were called quietly without expression, or any sign of recognition, just names and numbers stated flatly against the cold.

                        Ben Epstein – E 860-818-34

                        Grady Clark – C717-439-03

                        Vincent Fruselli – F 395-988-80

Each soldier acknowledge his name and dog tag number with a quiet nod of his head, trying desperately to calm himself, to present to the officers at least outward confidence, to push back the nervousness and fear tucked away deep within his mind. The tightness of his mouth and the bleak, faraway look in his eyes gave him away, of course. He was embarking on a voyage to some already fixed rendezvous with an enemy of his country. He was, however, not going alone. The possibility of death, a tight knot in his stomach, was his constant companion as he eyed the shifting gangplank crunching against the pier, moved by the slapping of gentle waves and an insistent sea. Once aboard the ship, he knew, his destiny was locked into some yet unknown fate.

Aboard the ship and watching the scene below were two men cloaked in heavy sweaters and ponderous jackets, and tight woven woolen caps to ward off the chilling wind. Both men were Negroes. They watched in silence against the background of noise and controlled chaos as the loading of the ship proceeded. No words were spoken.

None was needed.

They had seen this spectacle before, indeed too many times. They knew what was in store for the men and ship. Another run across the barren, watery wastes of the freezing North Atlantic loomed. Another cat and mouse game with the damned U-boats lurking in the depths. Another throwing of the dice against the law of averages in still one more effort to beat the odds. All this they knew and acknowledged to themselves in unstated mournful sadness. Again, they would sail into the darkness besieged by German U-boats and only God to navigate them safely through troubled waters.

One was tall and heavyset, and not even his arctic garb could hide the presence of a strong physical body. His hands, wrapped in beaten leather gloves, were huge. They were the hands of a professional boxer who had fought endless rounds taking on all opponents. He had even slugged it out in an exhibition match with the great prizefighter, Joe Louis. Three exhausting rounds and then it was lights out and some decent prize money.

A woolen cap covered his head, which had once bobbed and weaved too often in the confines of the ring. A battered nose and a rock-hard jaw highlighted a kindly face, one almost spiritual in nature, which, a person could conclude, was totally out of character given his previous vocation. Had we been able to peer beneath his cap, puffed ears would have attested to too many jabbing punches received, if not telling left hooks and right crosses smacking against his face.

As a fighter he had gone under the name of Big Hit Jones, a heavyweight fighter from a small rural hamlet in Mississippi. Now the Navy referred to him as merely Morris Jones, chief cook in the galley. But, to his friends he would always be Big Hit, the man with the explosive right punch and excellent culinary skills.

A bulge in the big man’s jacket suggested a weapon perhaps, and in truth it was sort of one, which he carried with him at all times, a copy of the Holy Bible, a gift from his mother the day he left home to find his way in the world. What had she said? Always turn to the good book. Always. Over the years he had. It was well read and, beyond question, well worn. It served him often in the violent world of boxing and later as he learned out to be a cook, and in recent years aboard a lonely ship in hostile waters. He was not above asking for divine assistance, either in the 7th-round or when 1,000 meals needed to be served. Lord, let me endure, was his mantra.

Turning to his buddy, who was standing with him on the promenade deck, he said, Cookie, just look at them. Christ, they’re so young.

Nodding, Cookie turned ever so slightly, and said with regret in his voice, They’re always too young.

Yeah.

Cookie was an experienced member of the galley slaves, the Negroes mainly, who cooked and fed the ship’s crew and passengers. He looked nothing like his oldest friend. Slim and trim best described his pencil-like body, which not even a lot of heavy weather clothing could obscure. His real name was Abraham Freeman. He was from Knoxville, Tennessee. His mother adored the Great Emancipator, and honored him by naming her first born after the slain president. In the segregated high school he attended, he had been a sprinter on the track team, an outstanding runner and hurdler, a flash on the track, as he was described in the school’s yearbook. A life in the kitchen of a cruise ship had produced a great baker, thus the appellation, Cookie.

How many times have we made this run? Cookie asked as he unconsciously gripped ever more tightly the ship’s railing.

Eight times.

How many lives does a cat have?

Nine.

Cookie shrugged and looked again at the long tine of soaked, bone-cold soldiers before saying, Poor bastards. They looked scared to death under those metal pots.

They have no idea how scared they’re going to be.

Yeah, he said with a great sigh. Yeah.

Talk gave way to silence. Each man, lost in his own thoughts, held vice-like the hard, cold railing, which offered safety from the wintery waters welling up against the ship. The railing was immune to the fears and hopes of the men working and boarding, and offered no interest in the loading of the ship. It simply existed, neither compassionate or angry. It was devoid of passion. It was untroubled by emotion and sentimentality.

As always, numbers began to run through Big Hit’s mind. He thought; so many men, so many days at sea, and so many meals to prepare before reaching Greenland. And then the questions: was there enough meat? Eggs? Milk? Flour? Vegetables? The list was endless. And predictably, the answers were always the same. So many stomachs equaled X amount of provisions for the seven-day run to Leif Erickson’s adopted homeland. The refrigeration units were filled to capacity. Foodstuffs bulged in boxes and ship drawers. No matter what, stomachs would be full. The bounty of wartime America had provided.

"Figuring the numbers again? Cookie remarked.

Got it down to the last can of beans.

You always do. How many this time?

Over 900.

Over?

902, Big Hit added flatly. Exactly 902.

More than last time

More construction workers this time, 171 civilians.

For those bases they’re building, Cookie muttered, at Bluie West One."

Exactly 597 military personnel, Big Hit said. To protect what’s being built at that so-called secret base.

With that, they both suppressed with great effort a deep-throated laugh. They were content with smiles acknowledging some truth known to them.

Damn, Cookie whispered, what a hell of a place to fight the war. Christ, every German spy in Newfoundland knows what’s going on? The Krauts aren’t stupid.

Knowing about it is one thing. Doing something about it is another.

As you say, Bit Hit.

Having settled that issue, Big Hit completed his mathematical cadence. And last of all, 134 crew members in good standing.

When they’re not drunk in some port.

There’s that, Big Hit, volunteered.

The two men were quiet for a time as they watched the last of the newly minted soldiers board.

Wonder what they think of the ship? Cookie shared with Big Hit.

What would you think? Big Hit asked. Just look at this old tub."

Old tub indeed, Cookie snarled back at him in mock anger. We are standing on a graceful cruise ship, I’ll let you know."

Big Hit turned away from his view of the pier. He admired the ship’s super-structure. He tugged off his cap and squeezed out the rainwater before covering up his head and two oversized ears. The then gazed at the old girl, trying mightily to stretch his vision over the 357 feet of the ship, and to somehow take in the almost 6,000 tons of metal and wood.

Remember Cookie, when we first saw her? What was it? 1936, I think, about a decade after she was launched."

That was the year. In Boston, wasn’t it? We were two black guys looking for a job.

And we got one.

Kitchen helpers, Big Hit.

Cooks in time.

It was the best job a Negro could get, Cookie sadly stated. We cleaned the toilets. We cleaned the rooms. We cleaned the casino. We cleaned up everyone’s mess. But in the end, they threw us into the kitchen, and we did learn how to cook for all those white folks taking a coastal steamer along the east coast.

Boston, Charleston, and New Work, Big Hit added.

Carried 325 passengers in fine style, Cookie reminded him. Even made the run to Bermuda a couple of times. Now that shore leave was good living. Sunny skies, cold drinks, and lovely ladies."

She was a fine ship. She was so damn nice to look at, a luxury liner with graceful curves and sparking white paint shimmering in the morning sun. Now look at her.

She was once the finest hotel at sea, Big Hit reminded Cookie. There was once laughter, and music, and dancing into the wee hours.

And the casino, where gambling and booze mixed with beautiful women, and very rich patrons.

We had some good years, Big Hit stated with a little remorse. It would be nice to have those years again.

The two men paused to gaze at the object of their affection. The white paint had given way to a wartime, drab grey color compliments of the War Department. The old ship was looking just that, very old and dilapidated, something for the junk dealer’s scrap iron farm. Where card tables and slot machines had once jostled each other for space, now soldiers slept. Where once deck games had been played, now guns stood to fight off the enemy hiding beneath the waves or behind cotton-like clouds in the sky.

The old ship was no longer a sleek liner cruising the ports-of-call. Now she was a troop carrier ferrying men to far off bases, and registered to the Navy as the USAT --- United States Army Transport. She might be weather-stained and slow going, but she was their home, their lady of the sea.

As if awakening from a deep sleep, Bit Hit snapped, We’re US Navy now, God help us, and we’ve got meals to prepare, Cookie. Let’s get at it.

In a moment.

"What’s on